Literary critics and historians usually dismiss the early works of
Hannah More as conventional or as derivative. It is true that
the early plays and poems of More reflect the general concern
for moral regeneration and national identity in Georgian
Britain. Hannah More, like most writers, celebrated the godly,
self-disciplined layperson who looked out for the common good
rather than private gain. She, like most writers, criticized the
excesses of decadent court culture and expressed "the passion-
ate feelings of frustrated men and women in an age of torn
attachments and uncertain identity." ¹ The reputations and
incomes of literati such as More primarily depended upon the
fickle opinions of Francophile aristocrats and their middling-
sort imitators. The ensuing resentment of the quality by "restive
and socially sensitive" intellectuals such as More blossomed into
a "nationalist Kulturkampf" against their patrons. The prints of
William Hogarth, the productions of David Garrick, the essays
of Samuel Johnson, and the works of Hannah More juxtaposed
their English simplicity, sincerity, piety, and morality with the
French extravagance, duplicity, blasphemy, and promiscuity
followed by the fashionable. ² Reverse snobbery appealed to
many frustrated imitators of aristocratic vogue such as More
whom the great had rebuffed with even more exclusive ways of
dress and behavior.

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